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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Preschooler craft: Ramadan lanterns

Kul sena wentum Tayeebeen! Just in case anyone is looking for last-minute decoration ideas, here's what Basbusa and I made last week. We always make a whole bunch of these little lanterns (so easy that even Kunafa, 20 months, can help), and although they're plain, they do look festive when you make a whole bunch of them and string them up like a garland.

The new kind for us this year was these:

(They actually don't look quite as cool as that - I think the camera is doing me some favors :) They're totally not "traditional" in appearance, but they're pretty, and they glow, so hey, they'll do.

Here's how we made them:
1) Scribble randomly on the paper with a white crayon.
2) Paint over it with watercolors (because they won't adhere to the part where the crayon is). I just offered Basbusa three colors, because of the tendency for things to turn into a massive pool of brown when she has unlimited options! Basbusa thought it was pretty interesting to see the white crayon-lines "magically" appear.
3) Wait for the paint to dry.
4) Put a few drops of oil on the paper, and use your hands to spread it out all over the page (this makes the paper more translucent so that the light shows through better).
5) Roll it up so that it's just about wide enough to cover your jar (we used tape, but a stapler would probably have worked better - the tape didn't really want to stick to the oily paper)
6) Put a candle inside the jar, light it, and slip the cover over it.

Just one note about the oil - we used canola oil, which worked fine, until I noticed that it was starting to attract ants! We'll use baby oil next time instead, insha'Allah.